Two-Year Synopsis 2012-2013

WOW!  Two years have gone by since I last wrote on this blog.  So much has happened in two years.

Don decided to retire in April 2012.  What an adjustment! Having your husband around 24/7.  He keeps busy helping others with small repairs of just about anything you can think of.

The Lord had been speaking to us through lots of means about parting with some of our stuff and downsizing.  A lady in our church who lost her husband of almost 75 years wanted to sell her mobile home and move to senior living apartments. So we decided to buy her double-wide mobile home located in a Mobile Home Park very near (less than 1/2 mile) our church, Victory Highway Wesleyan Church.  We purchased it in May 2013, but didn't move in until June.  Almost every room needed painting and Don built extra storage everywhere he could. Before you feel sorry for us, I will tell you it is a beautiful home with kitchen, living room, dining room, family room, laundry room, 2 baths and 4 bedrooms (master suite has a retreat area where we have two recliners with a TV and our laptop computers). We use the retreat area everyday (sometimes all day)!  One bedroom is my sewing/craft room, one is Don's office and one is for the grandkids (2 sets of bunk beds with toys and books) and of course the master bedroom.  Total square feet is 1700.  It is a nice mobile home park and the neighbors are great.  It also has a 2-story 16' X 16' feet square and very little lawn to upkeep. Life is good here and it is so nice to live close to church and closer to James, Tarah and 4 of the grandkids.

We took our time and really had our house in Big Flats in shape to sell quickly placing it with RealtyUSA in July. We spent over a month preparing for a large yard sale and sold over $2700 of our junk.  We slowly moved stuff into the mobile home until it was full.  We ended up donating a large amount of leftovers to charity and it felt good!  Our home did sell very quickly and we closed in September.

We have been busy since then settling in.  We took a trip to SC in October to visit Scott, Nicole and the 4 grandkids there.  Had a great time and decided to go back for Christmas.  It was a short visit, but worth the long trip. We arrived late Monday night and spent Christmas Eve day with them and then went to their church for Christmas Eve service.  It was awesome.  Then we spent all day with them Christmas Day playing with the kids and their toys. We headed back the next day stopping along the way to shop a little.  We took two days to drive back.

Other highlight events in the last two years include an ovarian cyst they thought was cancerous removed by hysterectomy for me (Thank the Lord it was not cancerous!) and Don had a joint replacement for his left big toe.  We took a few camping trips with my brother and sister-in-law, did our annual vacation times at Chambers Wesleyan Family Camp over 4th of July week, Veteran's Day at a free B&B in Pennsylvania this year,